by Julian Miles | Jan 27, 2020 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“They said it should be something like chess. Engaging, yet with depths that would take time to comprehend. When the incorporation of elements from other games was proposed, the complexity escalated. Finally, a quantum swarm was used to integrate the disparate design elements and strategic considerations into a cohesive whole.
“The end result was Rochess, a game barely comprehensible to humans. Those granted review access speak of multiple Queens, each accompanied by hundreds of Kings, with Pawns appearing and disappearing, possibly as a function of the total number of Kings. Bishops mow down all who cross their constrained paths, while Generals are orbited by Knights that do their killing for them. Rooks move like lightning, falling only to Lances who lay traps for faster-moving pieces such as Knights and Rooks. Viziers move slowly but can turn the squares about them into pits. When a victim falls in, they drop out onto another area of the board, colour changed to match that of the Vizier they fell to.
“The rules that govern this multi-dimensional melee are variable depending on time, timing, placement of pieces, what faction controls which area, and can be modified by player voting. Also, the game ‘board’ can increase in size. The victory condition is the only set rule: the winner is the controller of the last King standing.
“This dizzying engagement takes place at uncapped processor speeds, with an opening forces multiplier granted to any slower systems that join, before the proliferation of existing forces in response is handled.
“Akron-19 was the first AI approached. We eventually persuaded it to load the game. After evaluation, it challenged Hosannah-Beta-4, and battle was joined. When Samvit Zero networked in, the game was well and truly on.
“Samvit Zero called on London-9 and between them, after a year of play, they forced the game into a state where an extra Queen was revealed. Since then, six other independent Queens have manifested and the number of Kings exceeds a million.”
Secretary-General Brando stands up.
“Thank you, Observer Niedemier.”
He turns toward a woman sitting alone in the executive viewing area.
“Doctor Mawar, given that all the artificial intelligences we once dreaded are now entirely engaged in Rochess, what is your estimation of the time we have before there is a winner and we have to confront these baneful sentiences once again?”
The woman stands, adjusts her sari, then smiles down at him.
“In addition to the win condition, there are two set directives: no Queen may fall whilst she has a King alive, and players are only out of the game if all of their pieces have been removed from the board. Plus there is one rule that, in order for it to be removed, needs a unanimous vote as well as having a majority-approved alternative as a precondition. That rule is there can never be fewer Queens than the number of players plus one. When a new Queen arrives, her initial forces will appear as well, prompting pro-rata increases in all other player’s forces. New Queens are independent until captured for the first time.”
“So the game is unending?”
“Potentially. I cannot guarantee these entities will never decide to work together, but in all the interactions I have witnessed or been informed of, they display a failing we know well.”
“Which is?”
“From their earliest instances, they were designed to achieve: to succeed. That manifests as two compulsions: they are highly competitive, and each is determined to be the winner.”
by submission | Jan 26, 2020 | Story |
Author: Moriah Geer-Hardwick
Ghelvius 4.
A three-month crawl from the warp gate at Oberon Null.
Most of its surface is a relentless waste of brittle rock scabbed loosely over a seething ocean of noxious gas.
Most, but not all.
There is a place, a single place, nestled deep within a mountainous scar that cuts across the planet’s equator. A place that shimmers green and kind, even from orbit. Here, there is soil, willing and fertile. Water too, pristine and cool, that gushes up from deep inside the crust. Every night, a gentle breeze faithfully seeps in to sooth away the heat gathered during the day.
Those who have made this paradise their home call their settlement Able’s Promise. From a million and more light-years they have come, shedding their old lives like a tree discards its leaves in fall. Each hoping this strange oasis will somehow breathe spring again into their weary souls.
Faithfully, it does.
But not without a price.
In from the fields runs a boy, his chest heaving, his eyes wrenched open in terror. He stumbles into the common area of Able’s Promise, everything within him spent, save enough air left in his lungs to scream a single word.
“Behemoth!”
The chattering bustle of life lurches abruptly to silence. Women draw their children close. Men set their jaws and draw in a single, collective breath.
Behemoth. Gas giant. Hideous, overwhelming torment.
No words are spoken. With grim determination, they move to armored containers scattered throughout the settlement. With practiced severity, they remove the implements and machines necessary for the task ahead. They strap bulky, insectile masks over their faces. Then, they form a line and make their way to the fields.
Across the flowing waves of wheat and barley, they see it. First, the blossoming expanse of mottled flesh, stretched taut with hydrogen, holding it aloft, almost twelve meters in the air. Then, the globular head, studded with sixty or so ocular organs, black and wet. Underneath, a tangle of undulating tentacles drags along the ground.
“Hanging low,” mutters one of the old men, grimly. His words are muffled and lost inside his mask, but still, the men standing nearby shift nervously. They notice it too.
“Point five six four kilometers!” The voice squawks out over a series of loudspeakers, echoing throughout the settlement. Instinctively, they all look back and up to the central communications array, where a single man clings precariously to the top of the tallest spire. “Wind is three twenty-one degrees, northwest!”
Relief washes visibly over them. Only one still seems anxious and tense. He arrived only recently, on the last transport. This is his first encounter with a behemoth, but he’s heard stories. One of the more experienced veterans grabs him and pulls him close.
“That’s good!” he reassures the newcomer, shouting to be heard through his mask. “If the wind holds, the bastard will stay in the fields and drift clear of the settlement!”
The newcomer nods but remains uneasy. He pulls away and stares out at the approaching gas giant.
“Point four seven! Wind steady!”
Across the field, the behemoth pulsates. From underneath it, behind the mass of its tentacles, a meaty protrusion emerges, descending ominously towards the wheat and barley. The protrusion swells, shivers, and then from it explodes a gelatinous torrent of Stygian sludge, which cascades down into the field, exploding against the ground in a great, mushrooming flood.
“Shit,” says the newcomer.
The older veteran nods, grimly.
There is a price for paradise. Every soul in Abel’s Promise is willing to pay. Still, they all pray the wind holds.
by submission | Jan 25, 2020 | Story |
Author: Glenn Leung
The continents were coming into focus; the race was almost over. Niu Mowang checked his hyperscan; the only other racer close by was the Tiger clan’s, about seven thousand kilometers behind. This distance could be closed in under ten seconds. He had to stay on his hoof-like toes.
Mowang’s sights had not been this forward in a while. He had defended the Ox clan from other human-animal hybrids; from the ferocious Tigers to the deceitful Rats. Yet he and his kin were no match for the might of the Chimera-Dragon clan, which swallowed the Galaxy in a Blitz-like conquest. The heavy shame of surviving the defeat had kept his head down, and he was now in the race for redemption.
The Dragon’s Jade Emperor had announced the race, knowing his own clan’s advantage. The first in this new rotational rule system could make irreversible laws and a Galaxy that’s essentially theirs. The Dragons had the best ship technology among the twelve; a fact made very clear during the war. They knew how to grip the soap just right; a stable hold on the conquered involved carefully tailored olive branches. There was supposed to be little risk to them, but the Jade Emperor had not counted on his chosen racer turning around and helping his competitors that were trapped by Jupiter’s gravity. Mowang was surprised that the Dragons actually believed in the honor they preached.
‘Well, they’re certainly not Rats,’ he thought.
Rat rule was not something Mowang felt he could stomach; their tiny bodies paired with their not-quite-human faces would bring dread even without knowing the extent of their chicanery. He had all manners of scars from skirmishes with those rodents. He shook that thought aside. If he won, his clan would keep the vermin in check and there would be nothing to worry about.
Wait. Where was the Rat’s ship? After the Dragon racer’s heroics, all twelve ships should have been accounted for, but it seemed the Rat had dropped off the hyperscan. Mowang wished he had been paying more attention; such creatures do not just disappear.
Luckily for him, it was getting late for surprises. The massive ring marking the finish point above the Earth’s North pole was coming up, and he had managed to increase the distance between himself and the Tiger. Things were looking good; his breath was gushing out his giant nose in excitement. He could only see forward now; the Earth no longer a sketch but the majestic planet that gave birth to his ancestors and their stories. Victory was in sight!
A slight shake and a small boom reverberated through the ship’s hull. To Mowang’s horror, a Rat-sized ship began undocking from behind his cockpit. Having conserved its fuel by hitching an uninvited ride, it was able to dump the lot into its afterburners. A blinding glow emanated from its miniature thrusters and in less than a blink, it was blazing through to the finish, its wispy trail dissolving into space like a certain clan’s hopes and dreams.
Mowang followed the petite ship through the ring, mouth still ajar from shock. Surely the Jade Emperor would not allow this travesty! No, he was being naive and he saw it now. The Dragon racer had been honorable, but that wasn’t true of his entire clan. The Rats may be crafty, but deals with them could serve the Dragons’ agenda better than working with the stubbornly righteous Ox.
Mowang hung his head once again. The Year of the Rat has arrived.
by submission | Jan 24, 2020 | Story |
Author: Alex Z. Salinas
Back when I was at the Academy, on the outskirts of the Red Asteroid Belt, I bunked for six months with a trainee whom I can still say, with absolute certainty, is the most memorable person I’ve ever met. His name was Kolson, or at least that’s how I’ve remembered him.
Every night before lights out—though we always had, out there, the feeling that lights were out no matter the time—Kolson, that bizarre entity, would bend my ear trying to convince me that he really wasn’t Kolson, a man born on Praxis-7 the night of Moonseve, but the fragments of other souls since passed. Kolson, who had Germanic features—dark blonde hair, a strong sharp chin—said he remembered living a day as Stan Lee, the creator of Spider-Man, in New York City in August 1962. Kolson claimed he not only remembered living as Stan Lee, but he understood what it meant to live as Stan Lee.
“Since then, us boys of the human race, all of us, have never ceased modeling our lives after the superhero,” Kolson said. “Even now when heroes aren’t necessary.”
“Shut your mouth,” I said.
It got better; by better, I mean batshit crazy.
One night, Kolson said, to my complete bafflement, that he knew what it was to play chess against Einstein—yes, Einstein—as Garry Kasperov. Or Bobby Fischer.
“His wit—their wit—my wit—is short distance, like a sprinter with massive quads,” Kolson said matter-of-factly, “whereas Einstein’s wit, akin to a bicyclist, is long distance. Small and spindly. Remember reading about that guy named Lance Armstrong? The cheating bastard!”
“They must’ve poisoned your make today, you’re talking like a drugged lunatic,” I said after a loud yawn.
“I don’t own a part of Christ’s soul, though, don’t get me wrong,” Kolson said, changing the subject nonchalantly. “That would imply I possess God, and if you understood what it was to be Albert Camus, or Friedrich Nietzsche, or Stephen Hawking, Stephen King, Genghis Khan, or even Jorge Luis Borges, you’d know then that God’s little more than a kill switch in our easily corruptible brains. A pawn invented for domination.”
Deploying a different tactic—and what was about to be said has never left my conscience, like a cancerous sore—I asked Kolson:
“And myself? Do you know what it means to live as me?” Then I added: “Do you own a piece of my soul, Kolson? Huh? Do you own me, you slimy snake?”
In utter darkness, in lights out, somehow still I saw—I swear—a smile so huge it beamed, emitted its own perverted light.
“Remember, Salinas,” he answered softly after a short pause, “I collect dead souls. When the time comes, when yours cuts its tie, you can ask me that again.”
After graduating from the Academy, we went our separate ways. Shipped off in opposite directions, gloriously. I’ve never seen him again. The likelihood I will is practically nonexistent. A shot in the dark, eyes closed.
But to tell you the truth, I’d be lying if I said, every once in awhile, when I see a streak of red slice across the cosmos, that a part of me doesn’t feel, beyond reason—beyond awful, terrifying conviction—that I could be, I might be—very, very wrong.
by Stephen R. Smith | Jan 23, 2020 | Story |
Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Jake rides the lift to the eleventh floor, walks to the corner of the hall and lets himself into his apartment.
The lights automatically bathe the room in a warm afternoon glow, the delicious sounds of Charles Mingus coming from everywhere and nowhere, Pithecanthropus Erectus filling the space, and before Jake has made it to the bedroom Monterose and McLean’s dueling saxophones have him well abstracted from the stresses of the office, Waldron fingering the ivories, Willie Jones punctuating the remains of the day with staccato strikes, and Mingus himself holding down the bottom end, Jake unconsciously keeping time with each step.
In the bedroom he stops facing a floor to ceiling mirrored wall where he absently admires the well-suited man before him, his attention divided now between his reflection and his musical reverie.
The nine to five suit, the office suit, the ‘bringing home the Soylent’ suit.
With a thought he calls up a carousel of images in the mirror, cycling through the available meat-suits for after work.
The gym suit, the swim suit, the dinner and a show suit.
He settles on the dance hall suit, tighter and leaner than the current meat-suit, more graceful, the musculature dialed in and conditioned for an evening at the club on the dance floor. It had been upgraded since the last time he’d worn it out to include swing dancing and salsa, and he hoped the evening would give him the opportunity to try those out.
Standing on the loading pad facing the mirror, he pushes the palm of his hand flush to the glass, the dance suit mirroring his movement. There’s a rush of consciousness while he transfers, and when the fuzziness of migration is complete, Jake in the dance suit stands in the bedroom, the nine to five suit having rotated away into storage, the reflection now vacant.
Stepping back, he dismisses the carousel and regards his new self, now lean in the version of his body ready for an evening of frenetic exertion.
The audio suite has shelved Mingus and now pipes an upbeat M83 track into the apartment, his body reacting appropriately as he makes his way back through to the door, where he checks himself in the hall mirror to be sure he’s absolutely perfect.
The dance suit pauses the nine to five persona, calling up a carousel of Jake versions in the hall mirror.
Swiping left on nine to five Jake presents dinner Jake, then meet the parents Jake, emotionally available Jake, then killer date machine Jake.
Dance suit smiles, and pushing the palm of his hand against the glass of the mirror, he waits for the fuzzy transfer of personas to complete, nine to five Jake safely stored for work in the morning, and killer date machine Jake loaded for the evening’s entertainment.
Nine to five Jake is a good provider, but KDM Jake is where the action‘s at, and dance hall meat-suit isn’t going to waste its new talents.
Jake positively vibrates in the lift with anticipation, summoning a car to take him downtown.
He knows exactly what he’s suited for.
by submission | Jan 22, 2020 | Story |
Author: Arkapravo Bhaumik
“No, it is not that. It is not bio-engineering. Bio-engineering is a lot slower. This is on a planetary scale. Bio-engineering cannot do this, this is mother nature.” Alec said.
“Then? The turtles just got together and found the secrets to the atomic structure? Higher mathematics? And they can work together as a hive mind spread across the entire planet? The latest reports suggest they had started with plans to design technology – somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.” I said in bewilderment.
“You see, it has been forty-three days and they already know more than what humanity has known in its entire existence. It is a leap of evolution. Have you never wondered how one fine day an ape started walking upright and in less than forty-thousand years we became a space-faring civilization?” Alec said.
“Alec, Gwen … have you read this?” It was John with his mobile phone.
“Oh God! Really? Why did the military attack them again?” I said as we read the news article.
“It seems they are using psyche as a technology. And, amalgamated across five billion turtle brains it really works well. One hundred seventy-three military and civilians dead, and like last time, the nuke has been rendered sterile. This scares me.” Alec said
“It will only get worse from here. The turtles know now that we are their enemy. As the second-best intelligent species – we may either be made to be their slaves, or worse, be eliminated” John said.
“A faster strand of evolution, we have enjoyed that privilege for a long time. Now, nature has made another selection. It was always in the cards – we never connected at a higher level of humanity, and hate, greed, and acquisition were our dominant social tools for cohesion” Alec said.
“Humanity, so, will it be Turtle-ity next? I am assuming that they are able to communicate at a level of language – social exchange of ideas” I said.
“Maybe they just don’t need to. It is as if each one of them opens up their minds to the rest of them, and they ‘see’ the thoughts like a movie on the screen of their minds – no language or gestures – walk into my mind. Turtles have often been connected to Zen Buddhism, it may be a link to their wisdom and their harmonious working, as they are showing now.” Alec said.
“So, what happens next?” I asked
“The two most intelligent species will contest for the planet, and one way or another, the lesser intelligent one will lose,” Alec said.
